The researchers recorded the cell activity in the hippocampus while the monkeys were performingamemorytask.Eachmonkeywasshown one artpicture,and after 30seconds,picked it upfrom twotosixdifferentpicturesto geta juicereward.

“Whenyouneedtoremember peopleyou’vejustmetatameeting,thebrainprobablydoesn’t memorize each person’s facial expressions,”says Sam, one of the researchers“Instead,itrecordsimportantinformationsuchastheirhairstyle,height,orage,alparts that we are familiar with from meeting people in general. Our research suggestshowthebrainmightdothis,whichcouldleadwaystoimprovememoryinhuman.Ifwecanunderstandhowthebrainworkswhendecisions aremade,wecanpredict when the brain will make a mistake ,and correct it. Thisfinding about howmuch informationis processedbythebrainwillhelpusachievethatgoal.”